Two days. Two whole days. Axis had never been one to believe in the concept of house arrest. Not over more, in his experience, effective and secure means by which to hold someone captive. But a paltry two days into being held prisoner in his sister’s room by his uninvited guest, he was beginning to amend that belief. His brain felt scattershot and his body alive with restless energy he could not expel. Not that Katya cared. She was a vigilant warden, inciting Axis to believe she had probably done something similar to this in her past. She took no chances and covered every basis. She refused in cold, stoic silence to speak with him even when he attempted to grate on her nerves. She turned one of the lower level viewjectors into a recording post should she ever need to use the rest or washroom, would stand watchful at the other end of the room should Axis ever need to descend the upper level, and even moved the oversize cushion she had been sleeping on to directly in front of the door to keep him from slipping out in the night. And to top everything off, the bottle of Errand Boy had been drained the night prior. So absent anything to draw his mind away from his current predicament, he was left to wallow on the nest cushion trying to find the inspiration for how to escape. Escape his own room. It was embarrassing. Pathetic. Infuriating.
The idea of just shooting her had invasively stabbed into his thoughts on far too frequent an occasion. Being a selectee, he was certain a grazing blow wouldn’t even slow her down, necessitating a lethal or near lethal shot. Outside the absurdity of having to contend with the amount of Naval security, House Greaves agents, and potentially even Dukes who would flock to reports of a bolt shot in Tower DelRose, Axis didn’t want to kill her or turn her into an invalid. To her word, she had been helping him however begrudgingly and to her credit, helping him at the moment meant ensuring he didn’t do anything stupid like kill a Matriarch. Of course, he had no plans to do anything of the sort, but Katya Truminoff was still an honorable, dedicated and apparently savvy dragoness; traits Axis respected equally begrudgingly. So in spite of his instinctual impulse, shooting her was out of the cards.
Fighting her into submission wasn’t an option either, as he was neither interested in winding up with severe wounds to show for the effort nor inclined to confirm her suspicions that he intended to murder Marley Loftus. Both were a likely outcome were he to resort to talon combat. “You’re such a pain in the ass,” he said aloud, slamming his fisted paw into the glass floor. Katya didn’t answer, on account of being occupied in the washroom as was her apparent morning routine. The glass however, did reply, reverberating the impact back up into Axis’s foreleg. “Shut it,” Axis scolded the floor, whipping his head to where he’d smacked it. He considered going down below to search the bar stock to replace the Errand Boy while Katya was absent the lower level, but stopped himself. “The Errand Boy…” he murmured. The genesis of a stroke of brilliance was licking the edges of his head, and he put all his focus into holding onto and fostering it.
He leapt up, half skidding across the floor in excitement, and retrieved the empty whiskey bottle from the viewjector bench. Axis sat and rolled it over in his talons, tapping it with an extended claw to gauge the glass’s thickness. The ideas were assaulting him faster now and becoming more solid. He crept over to the edge of the upper level, reeled the bottle back, braced, and smashed it against the glass platform. The empty Errand Boy bottle predictably exploded with a resounding crash, shards of glass gloriously shooting off in every direction and clattering on the floor below. Axis stayed dead still, watching the washroom door like a hawk to ensure Katya had not heard the ruckus nor seen what he’d done in the viewjector, and after a sufficient few minutes tossed the broken chunk of glass in his talon to the side. A sweep of his tail cleared what shards had remained on the upper level and Axis bent his head close to where he’d impacted the floor.
A rush of air inflated his chest in hushed glee. He’d been right. The glass that made up the upper level of the room was completely undamaged. There were no spidering cracks, dents, or even any scratches where the bottle had shattered against it. Just to be sure of its durability, Axis attempted to dig his extended talons into the surface but they merely slipped and skidded off the reinforced glass and it was no worse for wear. A quick check of the washroom door confirmed Katya was still inside, and in that instant, Axis committed to his course of action. He bounded across the upper level, snatching up Pi’s away bag and emptying out its contents in a hurried heap. Everything their adopted father had always said should be in an away bag was present, but Axis needed only one small packet and flippantly tossed aside everything else in search of it. Said packet, marked WELDERS PINS in a bold, marketable font, was torn open the moment Axis pulled it from the other items. Clutching an excessive cluster of the pins in one talon, Axis slid to the far edges of the glass platform and jammed half of the pins into the gap of each eyebolt connecting to the suspension cables and did the same with the remaining pins on the opposite side. Certain both packs of pins were secure, Axis rushed over to the viewjector’s power box, yanked it from the wall, and cleanly sliced it from the viewjector with his talons. Stripping the power box’s cable was simple, and with the exposed wiring branching in two directions, Axis wrapped both ends around the packed in welders pins.
One last check of the washroom door, and Axis reconnected the power box to the wall receiver. Current surged through the cable, arcing, sparking, and making an excessive amount of pops and crackles from the jerry rigged setup. But it held, and the welders pins were already beginning to glow with rapidly gathering heat. Certain now everything was holding and would climax shortly, Axis dragged the nest cushion to the opposite end of the floor, just above the washroom and crouched atop it in anticipation. His eyes were locked to to the welders pins, going from red, to orange, to white as they reached their designed temperature to melt other materials. At last, the eyebolts began to smoke and turn color, Axis’s muscles tensing to match.
But even with his preparedness, Axis’s whole body still lurched when the eyebolts finally gave out. The mechanical tension of their braided cables released violently, whipping the cords around in a frenzy and smashing them into the walls with thunderous booms. The entire glass floor, having lost its two supports, first leaned, groaned, then careened down in a clean arc, Axis shouting maniacally as he rode the nest cushion down the increasing angle to the floor below. He jumped to the ground seconds before the glass platform, still connected to the ceiling by the remaining two cables, slammed into the wall with a shuddering boom. The entire room shook with the impact, accentuated by the other small pieces of furniture it had once held aloft breaking apart with alarming cracks of shattering wood on the lower level. But the glass platform held its shape and structure as Axis had planned, perfectly and completely blocking the door to the washroom from even sliding open.
Axis let out a satisfied huff for his destructive handiwork before shuffling his feathers back into place and approaching the barricaded washroom. The door was predictably being shaken violently from the other side as Katya tried to force it open and Axis silently let her give her best effort before speaking. “Ya done?” he asked loudly when the door settled.
“AXIS MORTIMER WHAT DID YOU DO!?” Katya’s furious scream cleanly sliced through the door and glass. “I WILL FIND A WAY OUT OF HERE!”
“Yeah… ah… good luck with that,” Axis replied, tapping on the glass.
“AXIS IF YOU SO MUCH AS LOOK AT MATRIARCH LOFTUS I WILL MAKE SURE THERE IS NO FACE FOR YOUR SISTER TO SEE AT YOUR FUNERAL!” Katya bellowed, a panicked note creeping into her voice.
“Well, I think I believe you, so let’s make a… let’s make a bet,” Axis propositioned. “When I let you out, if I haven’t - ”
“PROGENY DAMN YOU AXIS! NO!” Katya continued, beginning to struggle with the door again.
Axis scowled but continued, “... if I haven’t done the Matriarch in, you try to trust me a little, yeah? I’m being generous. You don’t even have to like me or anything.” Katya said nothing and instead began ramming herself into the door if the sound was anything for Axis to judge by so he carried on, “And if I do off the Matriarch… well… I probably wouldn’t come back to let you out, would I? Right… I’ll see you in a bit, Truminoff. Peace.” With that, he turned his back on her protesting roars, screams, and door battering and left his sister’s room, allowing himself a refreshing stretch at the sight of something other than the same walls of the past two days.
There was no commotion immediately outside the room which Axis took as a good proof positive his actions hadn’t alerted anyone to anything being amiss. All he had to do now was find a Palace servant to bring him to Loftus Tower and hope he didn’t happen to run into Charlie on his way out. His lenses flared to life providing limited directions, and Axis set off toward the same tram station he and Katya had used two days prior. The corridors of DelRose Tower were largely devoid of activity at this late hour of morning. Those officials and royals with business in the tower were still occupied in those roles and the rush of servants and slaves that packed the halls in the early hours had subsided significantly at the conclusion of morning duties. From what Axis could glean as he made his way toward the tram station, the only dragons moving from place to place at the moment were those in an administrative or secretarial capacity. The absolute worst to ask for directions.
Luckily, the trams were still rather busy and the station was awash in not just the colors of House DelRose but those of the other Houses and the general Palace staff as well. Axis made a brief inquiry on Loftus Tower to a servant drake who couldn’t have been any older than fifteen, and received prompt and clear information on how to reach the tower, no doubt in part because of the number of award pins and Grand Knight sigils on his uniform. As the tram car once again flew out into the open expanse of space between the structures of the Palace of the Loft, Axis was hit with a stark moment of introspection. Here he stood, wandering about the seat of Imperial power with impunity and without even a second glance from the other dragons surrounding him. It was like he was a speck of sand in a desert, and yet, strapped to his sides beneath his wings were two loaded bolt pistols. Two bolt pistols he could, should he so desire, turn on any dragon in the entire Palace. And until the electric crack of the bolt’s discharge, no one would be any the wiser.
The musing was almost disappointing. Here he had no notoriety, no infamy. The process of selection stripping him of his name hadn’t really affected him the way he knew it affected the other selectees. In his mind, he was an Imperial citizen in the legal sense only and didn’t place the same stock in a culture he hadn’t been raised in. The only thing he’d ever had that came close was his reputation and within the tight knit world of Naval spec ops, it was substantial. But whether they’d intended it or not, in removing him from that world for selection, the Duchery really had stripped him of his name. Axis found it humbling to a degree, but more intensely felt the need to rebuild that reputation. Kirin had routinely impressed upon both him and Pi that this should be the goal of any great warrior. A powerful enough reputation could grow into myth, and myth could inspire others to fight the injustices of the world but just as easily make such violence unnecessary. The Empire had stolen from Axis many of the ideals his father had taught him, but there was a kernel of truth in those ideals he did try to cling to.
He was jolted from his thoughts when the tram bumped to a stop inside Loftus Tower. Like the other stations, it was fairly uniform, and it wasn’t until he entered into the tower proper that the differences between it and DelRose Tower became immediately apparent. Of course, the change in heraldric symbols and from reds and silvers to greens, blacks, and golds was the largest shift, but even the architecture set it apart. Where DelRose Tower had been largely comprised of extensive great halls with vaulted ceilings and historic House artifacts resting in recesses along the edges of each hall, Loftus Tower seemed to have no such borders and hard distinctions. The inner sanctum of the tower, its main point of traversal, was completely hollow from top to bottom. Four massive columns dominated the center of the space, around which curled ornate, winding staircases and which also seemed to contain two elevator shafts each. Every story of the tower around the pillars was made of an encircling, balcony-like ring with doors leading out into the tower’s many facilities. Those dragons who could fly were zipping to and from different levels with ease while those without the ability opted to merely glide down if their task permitted it. House banners hung from the edges of each story, cascading down three, four, and even five stories in some cases. The paintings, sculptures, and historical artifacts of the House meanwhile occupied thousands of recesses in the four central pillars, forming a veritable vertical museum of history.
“Damn…” Axis said aloud, gazing up and down the expanse, unable to help being impressed. He began looking for the closest elevator access on his floor, and was about to make his way around to it when he nearly collided with a dragoness standing solidly in his path. She was older, but not geriatric, likely in her fifties or early sixties by Axis’s guess. Her scales were of an identical green shade to the House colors while her feathers were a raven’s black and her eyes a deep amber hue. A more obvious member of the direct line of House Loftus Axis would be hard pressed to find, disregarding the exquisite nature of her clothes and stance. “Can I help you?” he asked aggressively. “I’m kinda in a hurry here.”
“Your speech betrays you, Axis Mortimer,” the ‘ness replied, unmoving and eyes scanning over him in a penetrating way.
“Aight, so ya know me, which is weird, but uh… could ya move,” Axis repeated with more energy.
“My name is Leah Loftus, chief lady-in-waiting for and sister of Pillar Loftus,” Leah said, still ignoring Axis’ request. “Fate has smiled on us. I have had my dragonesses scouring the Palace in search of you.”
“Why?” Axis asked cautiously, his body stiffening and eyes making note of the distance to the balcony’s edge in case he needed to make a quick exit. That he had aimed a bolt rifle at Matriarch Loftus had to still be secret knowledge he shared only with Katya as he was not yet locked in a very dark, very lonely prison cell, but he wasn’t going to take chances.
“Word of your presence here in the Palace of the Loft has reached my sister,” Leah answered. “And since learning it, she has desperately wished to see you privately. And as you now stand before me of your own accord, I surmise you share this sentiment with her.”
“Well… ‘desperately’ is a stretch, but sure, I wanna see her,” Axis acknowledged with a shrug.
“Then you will follow me and I will take you to her,” Leah said, and without waiting for Axis’s response, turned a graceful heel to lead him. He followed her almost out of reactive instinct, his mind flooding with a deluge of questions. He and Marley Loftus had a history. It was an impersonal, disconnected one, but a history nonetheless. And Axis was certain she knew where their relationship stood as he had sent a message to her government office before the case of his custody concluded detailing in no uncertain terms that he absolutely did not want to be returned to the Empire. His younger self had used a sufficient number of profanities in that message to melt the faces of the prim and proper dragons of the Imperial royalty. If he were in Matriarch Loftus’s position, he would want to keep himself as far away as possible. Her desire to see him was perplexing at best and concerning at worst, and he struggled to find a justifiable reason for it as he followed Leah into one of the elevators.
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The elder dragoness waited for the door to the carriage to close before removing a gold pendant, inserting it into a perfectly sized slot and flashing her lenses. The elevator sang a cheery note in response and accelerated upward with methodical smoothness. It only took the carriage bypassing two levels packed with dragons waiting for it for Axis to recognize it would not stop until they reached the tower’s very top. “Were you any other drake,” Leah said abruptly, breaking the humming quiet of the elevator’s rise, “now would be my time to inform you of the proper decorum by which to conduct yourself in Pillar Loftus’ presence. However, you are no ordinary drake, Axis Mortimer, especially in the eyes of my sister and our House. I would only implore that you listen to her words and believe in their sincerity.”
“Can we not beat around the bush?” Axis said flatly. “I hate her. She knows it. Seems like you know it. Why should I give a shit what she has to say?”
“I will not overstep her and steal her words before she has given them to you,” Leah said, maintaining her composure despite Axis’s forthrightness. “I merely ask you give her the opportunity to do so.”
“Funny thing that,” Axis said with sarcastic bite, “She didn’t care about what I had to say seven years ago before fucking my life to hell.”
“Axis,” Leah said, for the first time in a more personal tone, “if you do not believe her intent, believe her action. She would have ordered our entire House from the lowest servant to our own mother to assist in finding you had my search not yielded fruit. Please, hear her.” Axis said nothing, merely shaking his head and fighting off every biting retort leaping to his tongue. He had not anticipated Marley Loftus would be seeking him out and accepting that fact was proving to be exceedingly difficult for him. Every aggressive word he’d been prepared to level at her seemed to be rapidly falling into irrelevancy for reasons he couldn’t possibly fathom. The elevator eased to a halt much sooner than Axis would have liked and the carriage opened to reveal a simple door emblazoned with the sigil of House Loftus. “Per the Pillar’s order, I can go no further. She is waiting for you alone.” Axis stared down the heraldry for a long moment before tossing aside his confusion over the whole affair and striding inside, trying and failing to not grab and slam shut the automatic door behind him.
To call the place he had entered a room was about as accurate as referring to the Palace as a house. Circular in design, the space was three levels high, each a successively smaller diameter and the ceiling extending well beyond the uppermost floor to a cluster of beautiful conjoining arches. The floor of the lowest level where Axis stood was made of polished wood boards so dark they would appear solid black in shadow while the walls themselves were made from finished black marble interlaced across their faces with thin veins of gold. Three shallow sets of stairs stood before Axis, dominating the center of the lower floor while on either side of them were two areas likely meant to be studies with the number of desk benches and fine cushions arrayed about them. The two upper floors could only be reached by a dragon who could fly, as there was no clear means by which to access them, suspended as they were by six elegantly thin and ornately carved wood arches extending out from the marble walls. Massive paintings hung around the place, each depicting what was likely a past Matriarch of House Loftus while the remaining decor included vases with bouquets of vibrant green and yellow flowers and wood carved statues of religious icons.
But by far the most clear presence in the Matriarch’s quarter was her very seat of authority at the crest of the three sets of stairs. Backlit by three massive, circular windows which shed light to the entire space, Marley Loftus rested behind a desk bench, the face of which had been carved with detailed vignettes of momentous events of the House’s past. Her features were at first obscured by the blinding sunlight cascading behind her, coming into better focus as Axis ascended the steps. Every one of his foot falls echoed with a sharp, deterministic rap, only furthering the sense of enormity of whose presence he was in. He could finally get a good look at this dragoness who had dominated so much of his waking life when he was at the bottom of the last stair set.
She was definitely older than her sister, but her blue and gray scales and lighter grey feathers were dim and frayed respectively. She looked far, far older than she likely was. Weathered. Beaten. She wore no adornments like in the picture Axis had of her, only further degrading the sense of presence he had expected her to possess and which her quarter implied she did possess. She was at least of a proper weight, and so did not look completely like a withered husk. But her eyes. Her eyes, the same almost glowing amber as her sister, were fiery and alive, belying an energy her body had long since been unable to keep up with.
It was into those eyes that Axis stared upon reaching the peak of the stairs. Silently. And it was into his own green pupils that Marley Loftus gazed back. Both dragons said nothing, each searching the other’s windows to the soul. Searching but without any clear knowledge of what they sought. How many minutes they passed in that stoic contest Axis didn’t know, nor did he care to try. But finding no invisible truth in the eyes of Marley Loftus, did the only thing that felt right. Still holding her gaze, he undid the front pocket of his fatigues and fished for a few moments before pulling out his creased, imperfect picture of her. He held it away from her for a moment, an odd reluctance to release the picture weighing on him. But he overcame it and with deliberate care, placed it on her desk and slid it to her. Marley Loftus hesitated briefly, but finally released her stare and fixed it to the picture. Yet more silence followed until a shiver moved over Marley’s body, followed to Axis’s utter shock and confusion, by not one, but two tears. They splashed onto the picture, and Marley quickly placed a talon over it protectively before losing all restraint. She remained hunched over her desk, weeping profusely but inaudibly save for the rhythmic convulsions of her body and the soft patter of tears.
Axis wanted to think, to do anything other than merely stand and watch as this pathetic heap of a dragoness cried openly in front of him, but it was as if he was locked in place. His mind was numb, incapable of comprehending what was happening. The years of vitriol he had harbored and built in his heart of hearts for this Matriarch had not been prepared for this. So many times he had imagined what he would say if he ever saw her. What he would do. How he would do it. None of those fantasies matched this, and it was as if his hate for her was being drained with every tear she shed, leaving an empty hole of nothingness in its wake. He tried to open his mouth to speak, but the words wouldn’t form, caught in his throat and unable escape.
“Axis…” His name being uttered was like the breaking of a spell on his very being and he realized he hadn’t been breathing.
“Marley…” he managed after several deep breaths. Matriarch Loftus dabbed at her watering eyes with her wings, clearly her throat to help regain her composure despite now looking even worse for wear. She straightened herself back up and looked at Axis again and offered a small, compassionate smile as she slid Axis’s picture back to his side of her desk.
“Axis,” she said again, her voice elegant and easy on the ears notwithstanding the shakiness of having just wept. “There is no apology I could render that would let you forgive me, is there?”
“No, there isn’t,” Axis answered shortly, still uncertain as to his ability to speak properly.
“Then I shall not offer one and insult you in doing so,” Marley nodded in understanding. “Please, sit. This will take some time I gather.”
Axis took the offer out of instinct more than anything and struggled with what exactly he should first ask, and mentally berated himself for the stupidity of the question that followed, “But you want to?”
“Axis Mortimer…” Marley replied heavily, “There is no amount of good I have done and may yet do that will ever displace the burden of guilt that I bear for what I did to you and your sister. None. I will carry that weight for the rest of my life and be buried with it.”
“Didn’t seem to matter much when you deported us,” Axis sniped back, his sense of self returning the more they spoke.
“Oh no, it did,” Marley said. “I have not been the same dragoness since that case crossed my eyes and my path became clear.”
“So why’d you do it then if you knew you shouldn’t?” Axis pressed.
“Axis, try to understand,” Marley answered slowly, “what happened… what I forced on you and your sister…” She paused, stymied for trying to find the right words. “Axis, the greatest responsibility of a Matriarch is one she hopes never to be subjected to. Within her Code, a Matriarch’s foremost role is to ensure the sanctity of Imperial law. To ensure it remains fixed and immovable, the strongest word in the land outside that of the Empress herself. It is only by preserving its absolute nature that it is able to protect all citizens equally and justly.”
“Aaaaand?” Axis asked, not seeing the point of her elaboration.
“And... you and your sister’s case placed that absolute nature of the law in jeopardy,” Marley acquiesced. “Law which was and still is under the specific purview of the Matriarch of House Loftus.”
“So…” Axis said, his tone growing more incensed the more he spoke, “lemme get this straight… you chose your job over two lives which you then proceeded to fuck over just to stick to procedure? Hah… no, you’re gonna have to do a lot better than that if you expect me to believe you feel guilty for doing it.”
“And you have the right to demand it from me,” Marley said with an infuriating patience. “When Kirin took you both, will you conceded that under Imperial law, he should not have?”
Axis gritted his teeth but answered, “Sure, yeah.”
“So once my Code, the Machinery Census, discovered this,” Marley continued, “we had no choice but to act to bring you back. Had we not, the precedent would have been set that Imperial law could not, would not, and be made not able to affect all citizens, both in their defense and in their prosecution. The entire legal system across the Empire would have been devastated from the smallest local court to the Court of the Loft itself. I would have potentially put every last Imperial citizen at great risk, and for this, I have no doubt, I would have received punishment befitting so foolish a decision from the Empress.” Marley stopped, once again searching Axis’s now steely eyes. “Axis, I was made to read both you and your sister’s pleas, Kirin’s plea, and the plea of the Office itself per the responsibility of my position. Never in all my years as Matriarch of my House had I felt so completely crushed by the weight of the Matriarch’s truest role as the ultimate servant to her people. My heart has been broken again and again each time I have thought of you and your sister, but I do not cower from it. This is my burden to bear as it would be for any Matriarch placed in my position.”
“And how often do you really think of us?” Axis asked with cruel intent and narrowed eyes.
“Every day,” Marley replied solemnly, placing a talon on a picture frame which faced her and turning it so Axis could see the image within. He was certain his heart stopped. His breath caught in his throat and he couldn’t help choking. The picture was one he knew too well. The exact same one had sat on his adopted father Kirin’s desk in their apartment in the Office on Incilleron. In it, one of Kirin’s colleagues had managed to snag a shot of Kirin playfully embracing Axis and his sister, all three of them with joyous, open smiles.
“Where did you get this,” Axis nearly whispered in Common, not caring whether Marley understood him. He knew his choking now to be trying to hold back tears of his own, and he would not give the dragoness in front of him the dignity of such honesty.
“It was sent to me by your sister, Pi,” Marley said. “With a note she had written.” Unprompted, Marley reached to somewhere below her desk and offered an age-worn sheaf of paper to Axis, which he took gingerly. Even in the Drael script, he would know his sister’s writing anywhere.
Hail, Matriarch Loftus,
Salutations and all due deference to you and your House. My name is Pi Mortimer, and I don’t think I need to explain who I am to you. We know each other even though we’ve never met. I’m writing this letter to you to express my deepest gratitude. I know this may come as a shock and believe me, it is as much a shock to me that I would ever feel this way myself. When I was deported with my brother back to the Imperia Machina, I was scared and unsure of how my life would ever, could ever, be happy again. I threw myself into my work in the Machinery Navy to try to forget and force myself to move on and make the best of a bad situation. But sometimes, fate has a way of taking the worst and showing it was actually for the best. Because of your dedication to our people in the Empire, I have met the love of my life. Without you, I would have probably never even known her name or seen her face and looking now, I can’t imagine a world where I didn’t love her. I just wanted to let you know that pulling through and doing the right thing that everyone probably didn’t want you to do, did pay off for the better. I hope one day to meet you face to face to say thank you again, but in the meantime, I’ve sent along a picture of me, my brother, and our adopted father.
Sincerely and with all the gratitude in the world from both me and Crown Princess Charlie DelRose,
Cpt. Pi Mortimer, ICS Helios
It was with a blank stare into the wood of Marley’s desk that Axis allowed the note to drift to the floor. He was dumbfounded. He turned to Marley and asked without an ounce of emotion, “Sponsor me.”
“What?” Marley balked.
“Sponsor me,” Axis repeated with renewed intensity. “That’s why I’m here, Marley. I’m in selection for the Duchery. If you really are buried by guilt, sponsor me. I think between that and my sister’s letter, you’d be able to atone, yeah?”
“Axis…” Marley said, looking almost horrified. “No one has told you what it means to be sponsored have they?”
“What’re you talking about?” Axis scoffed. “It’s a formal writ of approval.”
“No… well, yes, it is. But it is also far, far more than something so pedestrian,” Marley breathed, sounding almost apologetic.
“Well get it out, what else? Figured it’d be an easy call for you,” Axis said.
“Oh! Axis, if you truly do wish for me to sponsor you, I would be delighted and proud to do so,” Marley replied. “I just wonder if it is something you would desire. Axis, when a Matriarch sponsors a selectee and should he become a Duke, she has welcomed him not only into the Sisterhood Court, but has welcomed him into her very House.”
“Huh?” Axis cocked his head, grasping at the broader implications of what was clearly a serious decision.
“Were I to sponsor you, Axis,” Marley explained, “should you succeed, you would cease to be Axis Mortimer. You would become Axis Mortimer-Loftus to the outside, and simply Axis Loftus within these walls and on the planet Loftus itself. You would be expected to bring honor to our shared House and carry a vested interest in our duties, business, and politics. It is our coffers from which you would draw to carry out your duties as a Duke, and you would even bear the right to wed one of our number.”
“I’d be…” Axis swallowed hard, grappling with the reality Marley had just seen fit to drop on his back. “One of you?”
“A Loftus, in every legal, procedural, and cultural means by which such belonging is measured,” Marley affirmed, unable to hide the pride in her name that crept into her voice. “And as I said, the honor would be mine to atone for my sin and elevate you by my side, should that be your desire.”
“I…” Axis stumbled. His head was a mess. The mere idea of joining at the hip the dragoness who he had for years harbored so much hatred, justified or not, was shorting his ability to make any kind of rational decision. To do it would be like throwing away the person he’d been for seven long years like it had all meant nothing. “I can’t,” Axis managed to sputter out. “Not… not now. I need to think.”
“Please,” Marley agreed. “This is not a decision any selectee should take lightly and you honor yourself with caution, however you arrived at it.”
“I’m going,” Axis said, about facing and walking a fair bit faster than he normally would down the steps. He needed to get out. He needed to be someplace alone. Someplace that wasn’t suffused with old memories.
“Leah will see you to a tram and help you get wherever you need to go,” Marley said behind him, and Axis didn’t answer as he slid open the door to leave the Matriarch once again isolated in her chambers. He hadn’t even bothered to take back his picture of her.